Next

Thoroughly ridiculous yet basically entertaining, Next casts Nicolas Cage as Cris Johnson – a second-rate Vegas magician whose ability to see into his own future (albeit at two minutes at a time) has made him the target of both Eurotrash terrorists and a tough-as-nails government agent (Julianne Moore’s Callie Ferris). There’s little doubt that the inclusion of a needless and downright creepy romantic subplot between Cris and Jessica Biel’s Liz sporadically brings the film to a dead stop, as one would be hard-pressed to come up with an onscreen pairing with less chemistry (that the two are saddled with some seriously banal instances of dialogue certainly doesn’t help matters). Things improve substantially once the emphasis is taken off their burgeoning relationship, however, and the film does contain a number of genuinely compelling sequences sequences – with the obvious highlight those in which Cris uses his admittedly illogical abilities (eg his efforts to figure out the best way to pick up Biel’s character). Cage’s expectedly personable performance goes a long way towards keeping things interesting, though Biel and Moore seem entirely out of place here (Moore is, in particular, entirely unable to convincingly step into the shoes of her grizzled character). As an exercise in high camp, Next surely succeeds; it’s an agreeable enough time-killer that completely falls apart in hindsight, yet – for a movie of this sort – one could certainly do a whole lot worse.

**1/2 out of ****